OBJECTIVE: to describe women's lived experience of fear of childbirth.

DESIGN: a qualitative study using a phenomenological approach and a lifeworld perspective. Data were collected via tape-recorded interviews. SETTING: Sahlgrenska University Hospital, Göteborg, Sweden in 2003. PARTICIPANTS: eight pregnant women (24-37 gestational weeks) seeking help within an outpatient clinic for women with severe fear of childbirth. Two of the women were primiparous.

FINDINGS: four constituents were identified: feeling of danger that threatens and appeals; feeling trapped; feeling like an inferior mother-to-be and on your own. The essential structure was described as 'to lose oneself as a woman into loneliness'.

KEY CONCLUSIONS: fear of childbirth affects women in such a way that they start to doubt themselves and feel uncertain of their ability to bear and give birth to a child. Previous birth experience was central to the multiparous women. They described their experiences of suffering in relation to the care they received during childbirth. This mainly concerned pain and negative experiences with staff.

IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE: pregnant women who fear childbirth are an exposed group in need of much support during pregnancy and childbirth. The encounter between the woman and the midwife can be a way of breaking down the feeling of loneliness and restoring the woman's trust in herself as a childbearing woman.